


Until I See You

by miilky



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Request Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 15:05:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6289303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miilky/pseuds/miilky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone said she was always taking care of them. They didn't think it was the other way around. They didn't consider that they took care of each other. So when there's no one left, she takes care of him one last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until I See You

The hospital staff yielded to her demands. At seven visiting hours ended, and she was told to return home. They commanded her to. But there she was, close to one in the morning, curled in an unbearably stiff chair, vigilant over his silent form. In the silence the only thing possible of disrupting the tense calm was the constant _beep beeping_ of the heart monitor, the machine that proved this world still held claim over his life. 

Her throat burned with dried tears, and her eyes were bloated, red rimmed and weighted. Her parents begged her to return home, or at the very least, return to he apartment for food and a change of clothes. Chief Bogo said solemnly there was nothing else to be done for him, not in this state-nothing but a miracle could save him, but she was insistent. Her mind was wired and alert, and she, in her fashion, glared at the oversized cape buffalo and told him quietly, resolutely that she wouldn’t leave him, not like this.

“You know, back when, I always thought…things could get worst,” the cold floor chilled her feet, and she didn’t feel it. She could no longer feel, and she shuffled near the bed, pressing her hands on the secure railings that seemed to be close him in the bed. 

“I knew things could get better, and I knew things could get worse, and I hoped-gods, I always hoped,” each breath contracted too deeply inside her, and her heart felt as if it would be regurgitated out her mouth, splattering blood and guilt and shame all over him, “I always hoped that I wouldn’t make it worst, because I never ever forgot the day when I hurt you. When I made you feel…and I had worked to build you, and I brought you _so low._ ”

Ten years had passed. Ten years had passed since that moment, and she could never quite forget it. The world didn’t let her forget with its camera phones and viral videos, and she sunk in shame and guilt, relieved she had learned better. But she knew she wouldn’t have let herself forget even if the power of social media hadn’t worked against her. She wouldn’t have allowed herself to forget. The feel of his fur slipping through her fingers, and his slim frame slipped into light. 

It was his dejection, the bruised and betrayed expression snarled onto his muzzle, that made her realize her failures, and she closed her eyes, letting her head fall onto his pillow.

“Everyone said I was taking care of you, but they didn’t realize you were always taking care of me,” tears fell on his pillow, and some landed on his deep red fur. Her breathing slowed as his continued its raspy, mechanic pace, and she swallowed roughly, “because if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”

She didn’t have to explain anymore. The moments replayed fitfully in her mind, and she tried to find any fail point she might have missed. What made the burn seep pus and blood wasn’t the criminal’s swiftness and intelligence, fleas compared to Bellwether, but their gullibility and stupidity. A stray bullet from an accidental trigger, and he pushed her, pushed her out of its path. 

What made it worst? Their horrified screams at what they had done? Or her silent scream as his body fell across her? Or was it…just possibly the way he smiled as he began to lose consciousness, as he reassured her,  _“You dumb bunny…worth all the trouble…don’t you blame your-don’t.”_

_“See?”_ Her paw wrapped fully around his hand, an she was afraid, for a moment, that she would break it under the strain. For this was the kind of strain she had dreaded since she realized and accepted the severity of their situation; the beautiful, tangled, unconventional _severity of them._

“You took care of me? I’m a big bunny-I can handle my own, but you did it anyway, you sly fox,” despite herself, laughter came out in a dry, sand paper breath, “and I still can so…so if you’re ready, if you think this is it, you can go. I won’t make you stay. Dammit, you can go, and I’ll follow you later on, do you hear me? Can you?”

“And if not,” a careful whisper, she feared Death’s influence around them. Giving too much hope in impossible situations wasn’t the worst thing she could do, but superstition made her pause, “And if you’re not ready, if you’re willing to give Death the middle claw, then Nick- _Nick_ , I’ll be right here too. I’ll be waiting. With you the whole way.”

Desperation took hold of her in the deepest depths of night, and she looked at him, recognizing the pull of his smirks, the vibrancy of his eyes. He was beautiful in an unconventional way, and he turned her world upside down without truly meaning to. She…who had always wanted to change the world never thought of getting her world changed, and there he came in his slick fashion, carless and filled with abandon. He had done so much good.

The heart beat continued to beep-beep, and she watched the high motions and ignored the face mask and other wires and tubes latched onto his body. 

“Okay, I guess this is it,” she wiped her eyes with her closed fist, and patted his paw comfortingly, “I’ll see you in the morning, Nick, so you better not wake me up, dumb fox.”

Judy returned to her uncomfortable chair and wrapped a hospital given blanket around her. Her eyes closed reluctantly, still defiant to test any signs, and she didn’t want to think, just as sleep tapped her eyelids shut that she saw the same pull of a smirk on his face then. It was cruel, unfair, but spectacularly him, and she fell into a dreamless sleep, and flecks of green and red guarded her through.

**Author's Note:**

> A short-story I wrote for a Request Meme on Tumblr, "Things I said at 1 am." This was the first thing that popped in my noggin. What happens to Nick is your interpretation. I did have fun writing this though. I need to get better at writing scenes like this, as well as crime-drama-mysteries.


End file.
